اقرأ المحتوى باللغة العربية
The Houthis are prepared to expand their role against Israeli interests in the ongoing Middle East conflict but are learning lessons from mistakes made by Hezbollah, an expert panel said in a special webinar hosted by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies to discuss the conflict in Lebanon this week.
The Gaza war took a dramatic turn following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah and other senior Hezbollah leaders in September. Israel then launched an expanded campaign of airstrikes against Lebanon and invaded the south in a bid to end rocket fire on Israel and dismantle Hezbollah’s military and political power.
“Hezbollah is now teaching the Houthis how to avoid a structural collapse,” said Adnan al-Jabarni, a journalist based in Marib, Yemen. “The Houthis have learned how to avoid the painful hits that Hezbollah’s taken. They will go back to their previous organizational secrecy and have others take leadership positions [in government].”
The Houthi movement has partly modeled itself on the Lebanese group, copying its military, political, and media structures, and Hezbollah operatives have long acted as advisors. Houthi leader Abdelmalek al-Houthi has become even more cautious in his movements, and Houthi strikes on Red Sea shipping have slowed, suggesting a recalibration, Al-Jabarni said.
In recent weeks, the United States has intensified the bombing of Houthi military targets in north Yemeni areas under their control, while Israel has also twice bombed ports and power plants since July after Houthi missiles struck inside Israel.
With Hezbollah preoccupied with Israel, senior researcher at the Sana’a Center Abdulghani al-Iryani said the Houthis are saving some firepower to defend Iran if Israel launches a military strike in response to an Iranian missile barrage in early October.
“The Houthis’ role in the Axis of Resistance has changed… They are no longer using all their military resources in the Red Sea,” he said. “Now they are trying to save drones and missiles so that if Iran is targeted in a broad strike by the US and Israel, the Houthis can use these resources then to distract them.”
As for Hezbollah, Lina Khatib, director of the Middle East Institute at the School of Oriental & African Studies in London, said the group had recovered after the initial Israeli blows, which included pager and radio explosions that wounded hundreds of rank-and-file members of the group.
“Hezbollah has a highly flexible structure; it doesn’t collapse just because its leader is killed,” she said. “The loss of Nasrallah is a symbolic blow to the factions that looked at him as an older brother.”
Ali Hashem, a Beirut-based correspondent for Al Jazeera International, agreed. “Following the assassination of its secretary-general, the party (Hezbollah) returned to its roots as an underground resistance movement,” he said.
In the long term, the Red Sea is likely to remain a waterway liable to geopolitical disruption after the Houthis established over the past year that threatening its security is such a powerful weapon in their hands, Al-Iryani said.
“The only way to guarantee that the Houthis will not be able to carry out extremist activities on the Red Sea is to reach an agreement with the Yemeni people and to share power,” he said.